A Crüe too Mötley
Written on 11 May, 2020
On holiday I read ‘Mötley Crüe The Dirt’; the autobiography of the eponymous glam heavy metal band. I’ve been wanting to read it for a while, after hearing how it was a true, pull-no-punches, rock-and-roll tale.
Well, now I’ve read it. Yes it doesn’t pull any punches, and I have to give the band members credit for honesty. But that’t all I’ll give them credit for.
The band members are not nice people. They bitch, they fight, they do horrible things to others, and all without ever showing honest remorse or regret.
From the book I get the impression two, maybe three, band members have severe psychopathic tendencies, whilst the fourth has a social, political and philosophical outlook on life which would make the respective members of Spinal Tap, acting at their most cod-intellectual, blush.
This quote just about sums up the Mötley Crüe story, and the band’s attitude to the destruction they caused.
"For ten solid years we had been invincible. No one could touch us. Tommy and I had raped a drunk girl in the closet, and she had forgotten about it. Vince had killed someone in a car accident, and gotten away with it. We had released two albums we hardly even remembered recording, and they still sold like crazy. I had overdosed and and forced cancellations of our European tour, and our popularity only increased."
Whatever the band members did to themselves I have no issues with. If people want to self-destruct then nobody can stop them, and it’s ultimately their decision. But the band member’s individual attitudes, and actions, towards others, some completely innocent, is sickening and revolted me.
No-one should finish reading The Dirt and see Mötley Crüe as heroes to be worshiped or copied. They are at best to be pitied (especially the heart-breaking story of Vince’s daughter) and never celebrated.
